They were magic, like a kind of chocolate from another world.

I planted seeds in the bathtub garden. Elio helped me smuggle in 10 five-pound bags of compost soil, which we spread evenly over the stained, rusty porcelain, and after a month I had sprouts coming up. He asked me, once, why I had chosen tomato plants to put in the bathtub garden.

TOMATOES BY LISA POLISAR 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 20

When I was 10 I fel…